WBAP: Advocacy Group Offers Suggestion for Texas and its Improper Medicare Payments

Advocacy Group Offers Suggestion for Texas and its Improper Medicare Payments

Posted on March 16, 2017

DALLAS (WBAP/KLIF News) — An advocacy group says it has a way to help Texas fix its improper Medicare payment problem.

Leslie Paige is with the organization Citizens Against Government Waste and says hiring private auditors can do even more than hold the state accountable for what the group considers a major problem.

“These private auditors identify claims that have been improperly paid, and they have the ability to go out and recover the money back into the trust fund,” Paige said. “It’s not good enough to just measure the waste. We want to go out and get that money back and educate providers on how to do it right the next time.”

She says Texas is notorious by paying out too much money with things like double payments and paying somebody who has already died.

A recent study by the Council for Medicare Integrity shows Texas was the worst state in the country in improper payments, paying more than $50 million in 2015.